A look at North Korea founder Kim Il Sung's life

North Korea marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung on Friday, who is still officially revered inside the country as its founding leader.

Kim consolidated power through the 1950s, with purges of opponents, and established himself at the top of a socialist state, where leadership would be inherited by his descendants.

Kim died in 1994, shortly after meeting former US President Jimmy Carter in an attempt to defuse a major international crisis over North Korea's nuclear development plans.

More than twenty-five years later, the US and North Korea's neighbours are still trying to deal with Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development.

And North Korea is now under its third generation of Kim family leadership, with Kim Jong Un cutting ribbons at housing projects this week, opened in time for this anniversary.